ships of the black war, and others

Steve Higginbotham writes:

>      Is GDW planning on using any more designs from TML, or was this a one
> time thing?  And does GDW REALLY think they have a copyright on those
> designs, as their copyright blurb seems to imply?  Or are they unaware that
> anything posted to internet is public domain, unless posted with copyright
> notices?

I'm shaky on this, but does the concept of public domain apply to material
produced after the US implemented the Berne Conventions? As I understand
it, under Berne a creator retains 'creator's rights' (the equivalent of
copyright) to anything that he dosen't explicitly relinguish his rights
to. Merely publishing them without a copyright notice shouldn't do it.

(The way I heard, the US didn't sign the Berne Conventions, but enacted
compatible laws for the US. Perhaps that's the reason for the difference.)

Note: My understanding of the Berne Conventions may well be faulty.


      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     [email removed]
- ------------
"I used to argue the matter at first, but I'm wiser now. Facts
are stubborn things, but not half so stubborn as fallacies."
                - Stella Maynard in "Anne of the Island"

Steve Higginbotham writes:

>      Is GDW planning on using any more designs from TML, or was this a one
> time thing?  And does GDW REALLY think they have a copyright on those
> designs, as their copyright blurb seems to imply?  Or are they unaware that
> anything posted to internet is public domain, unless posted with copyright
> notices?
>

Actually, in countries which are signatories to the Berne Convention (lots of
countries including the US), works that you produce are automatically
copyright (even without any copyright notice) . If you do release them onto
an unsuspecting internet it is hard to stop others from freely copying those
works but you do actually possess the copyright so presumably you have some
rights if someone takes your works and publishes them under their own name.

Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, but I have seen copyrights discussed on the net
plenty of times over the past few years.

On a related topic: Publishers consider electronic publishing of a literary
work (ie posting your story to the net) to be a prior publishing when
considering your piece. So if you want to sell first publishing rights to
a publisher, don't release your piece on the net. (This came from Chuq
Von Rospach in misc.writing earlier this year)

- -Rupert
- --
Rupert G. Goldie	[email removed]
Knock, knock.
Who's there ?
Death.
Death wh--errk.